PROLOGUE He came here to attend the meeting that was never finished, one that would have decided their life and death.

As winter came to an end in the year of Guihai[1], a small tavern near the Bridge of Reincarnation welcomed a very strange guest.

He wore an ink-black robe with golden patterns of swirling clouds on his body and a golden guan on his head, holding a little golden fan as he came with a servant by his side, standing out in the abandoned wilderlands.

The snowstorms were heavy that day as the roads were paved knee-deep with snow. His pale-white face made him look extremely fragile and his limbs were shivering, but he was determined to move forward in the snow through the storms.

They walked for a while, until the body of that young man in black robe finally gave away, they entered the tavern.

Warm, steamy air from within the tavern washed over them past the lifted curtains. The young man looked a little better now. He lifted his gaze only to be greeted by a large hall filled with people; a story-teller was standing atop the stage, currently at the moment of narrating some folktales. His audiences appeared to have already heard his stories before as they drank and chatted among themselves. No one had spared a gaze to the storyteller.

Both of them were well-dressed and were born with handsome looks. However, they remained silent as they entered the door, so silent that no one had noticed their entry.

They passed through the crowd and sat at a table situated in the most well-hid corner. The servant poured a cup of tea for the young man before he headed off to get some food. The young man sat there, appearing to be troubled by something as he leaned against the wall and tried to get some shut eye.

“Spiritual energy within Yunze is gradually growing thin as demonic cultivators run rampant. They all say that we are all now relying on Huayang-Jun[2] to maintain all the spiritual energy that’s left. No one knows how long he will be able to last.”

Among the crowd of people, some of them were discussing the matters at present, their voices worrisome. On the contrary, the story-teller above the stage was reciting tales of Yunze back in the prime of its days, “Back in those years, the trees and flowers grew plentifully in Yunze and the place was filled with spiritual energy, the cultivators are unnumbered, and a countless of mortal came from over the mountains into Yunze…”

“Among them, there was a child named Qin Yan. In that year, there were droughts as well as calaminities. He followed his mother across the seas to Yunze seeking for an Immortal…”

Hearing the name Qin Yan, the young man in black-robe gradually blinked open his eyes.

That was a tale the people were long familiar with, the “Legend of Suiyan”.

From the legends, the Suiyan Mojun[3] was the reason why Yunze is now at the brink of being depleted of all forms of life.

He was originally the eldest disciple of Jiang Yebai, the Palace Lord of the Hongmeng[4] Heavenly Palace. He was once the most promising successor of the Heavenly Palace of Hongmeng. And yet, he betrayed his sect and assassinated his shifu[5] to establish the Unsullied Palace and become the Demonic Lord of his generation.

The Immortal Tribe fought a bloody war with him for almost twenty years, which finally ended when Huayang-Jun Fu Changling lead an army and launched a full assault on the Unsullied Palace. He had captured Qin Yan alive and delivered him to trial where he was hacked to death.

This was a past every single person in Yunze was familiar with. When the storyteller told it, no one liked hearing it. A young man who sat beneath the stage appeared to be annoyed by noises the storyteller made, and finally, he spoke up, “Mister, please stop telling these stories from the ancients. Tell us something no one had heard before!”

These words made the storyteller feel a little awkward. His face brimmed red and he could muster no words. The young man finally laughed out loud, “Don’t tell us that you’ve nothing left to tell?”

“How would I have run out of stories to tell?!” That storyteller felt a little angry. He coldly snorted and said, “Sonny, what do you know? This old man knows far more than what you could imagine.”

“Then tell us.” The audience cheered from beneath the stage. As he watched the crowd, the storyteller withdrew his temple and lightly coughed before he slowly said, “Since everyone here is interested, then let this old man tell you something from the past. Does everyone know that the Suiyan Mojun from that time died from suicide?”

This drew the interest of his audiences. The servant came back with some food, and after hearing this, he looked over as if he wanted to say something. The young man in black robe raised a hand, stopping his servant with his ice-cold hand as he coldly looked at the old man on the stage.

“Back in that year, Huayang-Jun fought a night of bloody battle with the Unsullied Palace. He took the Suiyan Mojun alive and he took him back to the Judiciary Platform for a trial. During that time, this old man was just below the stage. I have watched his trial with my own two eyes.”

“When the Suiyan Mojun was brought up, his golden core had been destroyed and his spiritual roots had all been severed. His eyeballs were dug out from his sockets as he clambered to the ground with weak limbs. He was dragged to where he had fallen. A trail of blood followed behind him and pooled into a bloody stream. How terrifying it was!”

The storyteller took a sip of tea and continued his tale, “And then, Huayang-Jun walked up. He was originally there to perform a soul reaving[6] before the audiences, but in the end, Huayang-Jun had only managed to tap his forehead with a finger and guess what happened?”

“What happened?”

“Qin Yan blew off his own spiritual consciousness[7]!”

Everyone inhaled a breath of air as they heard this.

To a cultivator, there were three things one cannot lose, and they were the golden core, the spiritual roots, and their spiritual consciousness. Among these three things, the golden core holds all their spiritual powers, the spiritual roots absorb the spiritual energy, and their spiritual consciousness contains their soul. Regardless which of these three were injured, the owner would feel an unsurpassable pain. The spiritual consciousness was the spot that hurt the most, for it was the foundation of a person. If one were to lose their golden core or their spiritual roots, then the gravest punishment was that they may never become cultivators again, but without the spiritual consciousness, they would have lost all of themselves.

“What has he hidden that was such forbidden knowledge? That he would rather blow his own consciousness than let someone else find out about it?”

“Did Huayang-Jun manage to find out anything?”

“Without the spiritual consciousness, wouldn’t the Suiyan Mojun have already turned into a senseless idiot? Could he still commit suicide?”

“If one were to destroy their own spiritual consciousness, it would take some time before it completely collapses. It seems like the Suiyan Mojun did not live a moment longer after he’d destroyed his own spiritual consciousness.”

*＊✿❀○❀✿＊*

Questions rose among the audiences. The young man in black lowered his gaze, the hand he’d placed on the table quivering lightly.

As the storyteller listened to those questions, he shook his head. “What all of you asked, this old man doesn’t know the answer to them either. This old man is taking a guess that Huayang-Jun might know something. Because the Suiyan Mojun back then had collapsed to the ground, and Huayang-Jun was very taken aback at the sight. He appeared to have said something… but I haven’t been able to hear it clearly. All I saw was the Suiyan Mojun climbed to his feet, then thrust a hand into his own heart and pulled something out. Then, he crushed it and it was gone. That object crumpled to dust. The Suiyan Mojun then laughed and fell back down, dead where he laid. Being hacked afterwards was only for the sake of protocols, simply just for show.”

“Then what was the object that he’d taken out?”

Everyone was very curious. The storyteller shook his head, implying that he didn’t know.

As everyone engaged into a discussion, a young man numbly asked, “When the Suiyan Mojun used to be in the Heavenly Palace of Hongmeng, was he cultivating the Path of Lovelessness?”

When he voiced it out, everyone appeared to have thought of something.

The legends said that a love root would exist within all those who cultivated the Path of Lovelessness. Upon reaching the final stage of their cultivation, they would pull out their love root and from therein, they would never again be harassed by emotions as they would feel no love.

Everyone daren’t say anything, as if they’ve discovered a secret that they dare not let anyone know.

“I heard that a few years ago, Huayang-Jun and the Suiyan Mojun were both favoured sons of Yunze. Back in that year, the Suiyan Mojun did not attend the discussions of battle at the Stage of Lords, and so, Huayang-Jun purposely invited him for a battle at the Bridge of Reincarnation.”

“Did the Suiyan Mojun come?”

No one should have known the answer to this, everyone thought.

“He did.”

Just when everyone thought that no one knew the answer, the manager who was working on an abacus by the counter all these time spoke. He raised his hand and pointed at a long bridge through the window, and said, “There was a ghost rain in those few days, and he was just there, standing with an umbrella. He had waited for seven days, but Huayang-Jun never came. Until when people from the Heavenly Palace of Hongmeng came, did he leave. Oh, he even left his umbrella here before he left.”

As the manager spoke, he sighed, lowering his gaze to the abacus as he quietly said, “A few years ago, he was still a good man. What made him lose his senses and commit something so foolish?”

These words had drawn both pity and mockery. The tavern was quite rowdy for a while. The servant was stunned in a daze for a while, but as he returned to his senses, he looked at the young man in black robe and said, “Young Master, you…”

The young man in black did not speak. He raised his long and slender fingers and stopped them above his own lips, pressed into a gentle and suave smile. There was merciful begging in his eyes as he lightly said, “Shh”.

The servant found no words to say. The young man weakly picked up the teapot next to him and poured himself a cup of wine. After he took a sip, he appeared to have mustered the courage to stand up and walk towards the manager, raising his pale-white and skinny face at him. He was born with a pair of graceful-looking peach blossom eyes that looked weary and gentle. With a smile, he spread his fair and clean hands at the manager, and politely said, “The umbrella, please.”

The manager looked at the young man, stunned. He had not given any response when the wardrobe behind him opened suddenly and out flew a 64-section paper oil umbrella, made of black bamboo with paintings of rippling reeds, right into his hand in front of the audiences.

The young man lowered his gaze and studied the old marks left behind permanently by the ghost rain. He paused for a moment, then walked towards the door as everyone watched him, opening the umbrella.

At this moment, a light blizzard was happening outside. The young man walked as he held the umbrella, his sleeves flipping wildly in the wind as the rippling reeds on the umbrella swayed.

As he worked his way towards the Bridge of Reincarnation, someone shouted out from behind him, “Isn’t that… Isn’t that Huayang-Jun?!”

“What is he doing here?”

As if he could still see Qin Yan adorned with white robes and a jade guan back in that year, a long sword strapped to his waist, with the 64-section umbrella made from black bamboo in his hand, quietly waiting for him.

In reality, in this life, he had not spent much time with Qin Yan at all. Each of their meetings were spent trying to kill each other until finally, Qin Yan died in front of him.

A dead person was like an extinguished flame. All the hatred and grudges of the past was extinguished along with it, and sometimes, he would still think of that person's face finally grinded into dust, before evaporating into a bright moon. It was both a cold and fiery sensation, leaving a very shallow and long scar in his heart.

Even he himself wasn’t sure why he came to this place at this moment.

And then, when he imagined how Qin Yan looked waiting for him, he suddenly understood why he came: his limit was near and the reason why he came all the way here—

The reason he came to this place was to attend that meeting that was never finished, one that would have decided their life and death.

On the year of Guichou, ten years ago, the twelfth month, in the Immortal Realm of Yunze, the Suiyan Mojun, Qin Yan who had toiled winds and storms was hacked to death by a thousand knives on the Judiciary Platform. Everyone thought that after Qin Yan’s death, Yunze would return to its former glory, but what they didn’t expect was that even though Qin Yan had died, demonic cultivation was everlasting.

On the first year of Qin Yan's death, all was still at peace.

On the third year of Qin Yan's death, Yunze fell into chaos.

On the fifth year of Qin Yan’s death, Yunze’s spiritual energy receded and all walking life withered away. Huayang-Jun Fu Changling expended his own spiritual energy to maintain the energy of life that flowed within the veins of Yunze.

On the tenth year of Qin Yan’s death, winter in the year of Guihai came to an end, and Fu Changling succumbed at the Bridge of Reincarnation.

And from then on, Yunze was no more.

Author’s Notes

What happened in the summary happened later in the story. The first part is more laid back.

[1] 癸亥[guihai]: Called the Sexagenary Cycle in English, it’s a 60-year cycle in Chinese calendar that is named after the Ten Heavenly Stems and the Twelve Earthly Branches (read here). In short, the ‘gui’ is the last of the Ten Heavenly Stems, whereas ‘hai’ refers to the Pig, who is the last of the Twelve Earthly Branches (the Zodiac), so the year of Guihai is the last year of the 60-year cycle.

[2] 华阳君 - 华 means flower/magnificent. 阳 means sun. Huayang-Jun is Fu Changling’s title. In this novel, Fu Changling will be called Huayang-Jun or Huayang Zhenjun (technically ‘True Lord/Gentleman of the Magnificent Sun).

[3] 岁晏 - Suiyan refers to someone's late years, or as a year comes to an end. ‘Suiyan Mojun’ is Qin Yan’s title. In Chinese, it’s 岁晏魔君 (technically ‘Demonic Lord of the End of Years’).

[4] 鸿蒙 [hongmeng]: refers to the primordial world, the world before the universe was born.

[5] 师父 lit Master

[6] 搜魂 a technique in xianxia novels involving tampering with someone’s meridians that would cause their blood and breathes to flow backwards and putting them in such pain that their internal organs feels like being bitten by a thousand insects. Used for interrogation.

[7] 识海: a place in the mind where all your knowledge and memories are stored, technically everything that makes yourself you. It directly translates into ‘knowledge sea’ but I think spiritual consciousness makes more sense.